Suzy Allman for The New York Times

FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2015

SAM SIFTON

Good morning. We took six recipes into the shop this week for renovation and new photographs. We introduce them herewith as things that you should absolutely consider cooking and eating over the weekend.
First up, Jacques Pépin's awesome 1991 recipe for zucchini salad(above), as simple as can be and a marvelous accompaniment to, say, a dish of roasted chicken Provençal.
Here's Mark Bittman's 2008 recipe for corn salad with tomatoes, feta and mint, best consumed after listening to Kelli O'Hara singing "Wonderful Guy" from "South Pacific."
Taking a different tack, we also present the chef Scott Conant's 2003recipe for spaghetti with fresh tomato and basil sauce, a dish he's rightly famous for, both inside and out of his restaurant Scarpetta and his hometown, Waterbury, Conn. (where the cross rises above Holy Land).
How about Molly O'Neill's recipe for chocolate silk pie from 1995? Perhaps you'd like to bake my boss recipe for banana pudding from 2013. Or throw down a gauntlet against the high prices stores command for granola with this 2011 recipe for granola that we adapted from the one Daniel Humm cooks for Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan. It's insanely good.
Any one of those recipes will make the weekend pass more brightly than it otherwise may. (Though if you don't agree, take a gander at this collection of recipes for cold noodles instead.)
And don't think for a moment that we have abandoned the novel. Tamar Adler has a shiny new recipe for vegetables à la Grecque in The Times this weekend, along with a column about preserves. You could make that, for sure. But the column also makes mention of a recipe for pickled shellfish Tamar picked up from a Maine fisherman named Raymond Gilliam. She recorded it as follows: "Wash your mussels or clams, then cook them till they open. Take them out of their shells. Put them in a jar, and cover all the way with Wish-Bone Italian dressing."
Which sounds pretty exceptional. We're going to try that as well.
Other ideas for what to cook tonight and this weekend are at Cooking. Please save the recipes you like to your recipe box, and rate them when you're done cooking.
If you run into trouble along the way, with a recipe or with any part of our site or apps, please reach out for help. We're atcookingcare@nytimes.com. If you want to be social, check us out onFacebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. The hashtag we use to brag on our food is #nytcooking.
Finally, if you're really pleased or angry (nowhere in between, please!), you can get me at foodeditor@nytimes.com. Have a great weekend.

Music

Songs About Food

WHAT IF? An imaginary record cover for a compilation of food-inspired music.

AOL recently contacted me to create a playlist of food-inspired songs for its "Blogger Radio" station on AOL Radio (see below for details on how to listen). After much digging through my own music collection (and some serendipitous searching online), I came up with 100 songs.

There's a heavy emphasis upon jazz and blues, a slathering of R&B, a douse of hip-hop, along with a sprinkling of pop classics and a dusting of heavy metal (o.k., just one -- Def Leppard's cheesetastic "Pour Some Sugar on Me").

As I pored over all of this gastro-music, it became pretty clear that food is more often than not a (barely veiled) euphemism for sex. Candy seems to trump just about everything edible as the most frequent object of desire. Other songs are culinary in name only (take Taste of Honey's "Sukiyaki," for example), while others immerse themselves in a heady contemplation of appetite -- I'm thinking here of the Fat Boys' great, tragicomic "Jail House Rap." And then there's food as abstraction in the form of Dizzy Gillespie's manic be-bop standard, "Salt Peanuts."

You can find the complete playlist (in alphabetical order) below. It's not comprehensive, so if you have a favorite food song that isn't covered here, please share it in the comments.

Tune In: For PC Users, listen by clicking here. If you're on a Mac, download the AOL Radio player, log in with your AOL/AIM screenname, and select "Blogger Radio" under the "Soundtracks & Themes" category. The playlist will be up until June 14, when the station gets turned over to the next DJ/blogger.

Tasty! Songs for Food Lovers

All That Meat And No Potatoes by Fats Waller

All You Can Eat by the Fat Boys

Artichoke by Cibo Matto

Augustus Gloop by Danny Elfman

Augustus Gloop by The Poozies

Banana Boat (Day-O) by Harry Belafonte

Beans And Cornbread by Louis Jordan

Beef Jerky by Cibo Matto

Birthday Cake by Cibo Matto

Black Coffee In Bed by Squeeze

Bowl Of Oranges by Bright Eyes

Brown Sugar by D'Angelo

Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones

Candy by Cameo

Candy by Morphine

Candy (Drippin' Like Water) by Snoop Dogg

Candy Shop by 50 Cent

Catfish by Bob Dylan

Catfish Blues by Jimi Hendrix

Chicken Grease by D'Angelo

Chicken Noodle Soup by Webstar & Young B

Chicken Soup With Rice by Carole King

Chocolate Buttermilk by Kool & The Gang

Chocolate City by Parliament

Chocolate Factory by R. Kelly

Choux Pastry Heart by Corinne Bailey Rae

Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk by Rufus Wainwright

Cookin' by Clifford Brown

Crawfish by Elvis Presley

Days Of Wine And Roses by Henry Mancini

Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost by Lonnie Donegan